Tuesday, September 30, 2014

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No. 190/2014 dated 30 September 2014

War against Islamic State:Sowing seeds of more extremist groups

By James M Dorsey

Synopsis

The
US-led war against the Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls a
swath of Syria and Iraq, is sowing seeds for the sprouting of yet more
extremist groups. In doing so the US is reverting to a misguided policy
that has spawned more virulent forms of militant Islam.Commentary

The
US-led international response to the Islamic State’s advances in Iraq
and Syria is more extensive and fraught with danger than the war on
terror declared by President George W Bush in the wake of the 9-11
attacks on New York and Washington. It is a response that contains the
seeds of continued failure in confronting terrorism and threatens to
give rise to groups that may be even more extreme than the Islamic
State, hard though that may be to imagine.

Bush concluded within
weeks of the 9/11 attacks that Al Qaeda was as much a product of US
support for autocratic Arab regimes as it was the result of politically
bankrupt Arab leaders. His acknowledgement amounted to an admission of
failure of a US policy designed to maintain stability in a key
geo-strategic and volatile part of the world.

A decade later,
discontent with failed regimes produced popular revolts that toppled the
autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Elsewhere in the
region, mass protests erupted in Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and
Oman. Bahrain’s minority Sunni rulers brutally suppressed a Shia
uprising. Egypt’s transition was routed with a military coup against the
Muslim Brotherhood, backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates. Syria is in its fourth year of a bloody civil war that has
fuelled the rise of the Islamic State, a jihadist group that makes Al
Qaeda look like a lesser evil.

Multiple problemsThe
problems with the US-led military offensive against the Islamic State
are many. For one, it turns Clausewitz’ definition of war as an
extension of diplomacy on its head. It reduces what is at its core a
political problem that requires a political solution coupled with a
military effort to contain the Islamic State to a military problem in
which politics is an afterthought.

The emphasis on a military
solution moreover goes beyond restoring the principle of endorsement of
repressive regimes like those of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates
and Egypt that are regressive and/or supportive of ideologies akin to
that of the Islamic State, promoters of sectarianism, and among the
worst offenders of human rights. It reinforces perceptions among many
Sunni Muslims that the West first turned a blind eye to the killings in
Syria and now is undermining what is left of credible resistance to the
Syrian regime. Those perceptions are rooted in US expansion of its
offensive in Syria to include Jabhat al-Nusra, a jihadist group aligned
with Al Qaeda that is wholly focused on defeating the Syrian regime but
opposed to the Islamic State.

The Obama administration’s
alignment with the Middle East’s counter-revolutionary forces and
targeting of groups other than the Islamic State risks identifying the
US with efforts by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to
target political Islam as such. The three Arab nations earlier this year
cracked down on non-violent groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. They
have since called for an expansion of the campaign against the Islamic
State to include non-violent expressions of political Islam. The US
alignment prevents it from adopting a policy that would seek to contain
the Islamic State militarily while focusing on removing the grievances
on which the group feeds. It is a policy that is destined to at best
provide a band aid for a festering wound.

Saudi and UAE efforts
to target political Islam as such were articulated earlier this year by
former British prime minister Tony Blair. Blair argued against “a deep
desire to separate the political ideology represented by groups such as
the Muslim Brotherhood from the actions of extremists including acts of
terrorism.” He acknowledged that it was “laudable” to distinguish
“between those who violate the law and those we simply disagree with”
but warned that “if we're not careful, they also blind us to the fact
that the ideology itself is nonetheless dangerous and corrosive; and
cannot and should not be treated as a conventional political debate
between two opposing views of how society should be governed.”

On
that basis, it is hard to see why Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia’s puritan
interpretation of Islam that is the well spring of much of contemporary
jihadist thinking, does not top the list of ideologies that are
“dangerous and corrosive.” Saudi Arabia, like the Islamic State, was
born in a jihadist struggle that married Islamist warriors led by an
18th century jurist Mohammed Abdul Wahab, with the proto-kingdom’s
ruling Al Saud clan.A wake-up callThe
rise of the Islamic State is a watershed, a wake-up call for many in
the Arab and the Muslim world desperate for change. It has fuelled a
long-overdue debate among Arabs and Muslims about the kind of world they
want to live in.

In an essay earlier this month entitled ‘The
Barbarians Within Our Gates,’ prominent Washington-based journalist
Hisham Melhelm wrote: “The Arab world today is more violent, unstable,
fragmented and driven by extremism — the extremism of the rulers and
those in opposition — than at any time since the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire a century ago… The promise of political empowerment, the return
of politics, the restoration of human dignity heralded by the season of
Arab uprisings in their early heydays — all has given way to civil wars,
ethnic, sectarian and regional divisions and the reassertion of
absolutism, both in its military and atavistic forms.... The jihadists
of the Islamic State, in other words, did not emerge from nowhere. They
climbed out of a rotting, empty hulk — what was left of a broken-down
civilization.”

For his part, Turki al-Hamad, a liberal Saudi
intellectual, questioned how Saudi religious leaders could confront the
Islamic State’s extremist ideology given that they promote similar
thinking at home and abroad. Writing in the London-based newspaper Al
Arab, Hamad argued that the Saudi clergy was incapable of confronting
the extremism of groups like the Islamic State “not because of laxness
or procrastination, but because they share the same ideology."

Neither
Melhelm nor Hamad are Islamists. Yet, they reflect widespread
soul-searching among Islamists and non-Islamists across the Arab world.
Theirs is a debate that predates the rise of the Islamic State but has
been pushed centre stage by the jihadists. It is a debate that is at the
core of tackling the root causes on which jihadists groups feed. It is a
debate that threatens to be squashed by a policy that focuses on
military rather than political solutions and promotes status quo regimes
whose autocracy chokes off opportunities for the venting of wide-spread
discontent and anger, leaving violence and extremism as one of the few,
if not the only, option to force change.James
M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore,
co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of
Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the same title.Click HERE to read this commentary online.

Germany Fights on Two Fronts to Preserve the Eurozone

By Adriano Bosoni and Mark Fleming-Williams
The European Court of Justice announced Sept. 22 that hearings in the
case against the European Central Bank's (ECB) bond-buying scheme known
as Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) will begin Oct. 14. Though the
process is likely to be lengthy, with a judgment not due until mid-2015,
the ruling will have serious implications for Germany's relationship
with the rest of the eurozone. The timing could hardly be worse, coming
as an anti-euro party has recently been making strides in the German
political scene, steadily undermining the government's room for
maneuver.
The roots of the case go back to late 2011, when Italian and Spanish
sovereign bond yields were following their Greek counterparts to
sky-high levels as the markets showed that they had lost confidence in
the eurozone's most troubled economies' ability to turn themselves
around. By summer 2012 the situation in Europe was desperate. Bailouts
had been undertaken in Greece, Ireland and Portugal, while Italy was
getting dangerously close to needing one. But Italy's economy, and
particularly its gargantuan levels of government debt, meant that it
would be too big to receive similar treatment. In any event, the
previous bailouts were not calming financial markets.

As Spain and Italy's bond yields lurched around the 7
percent mark, considered the point where default becomes inevitable,
the new president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, said that
the ECB was willing to do whatever it took to save the euro. In concert
with the heads of the European governments, the ECB developed a
mechanism that enables it to buy unlimited numbers of sovereign bonds to
stabilize a member country, a weapon large enough to cow bond traders.

ECB President Mario Draghi never actually had to step in because the
promise of intervention in bond markets convinced investors that
eurozone countries would not be allowed to default. But Draghi's
solution was not to everyone's taste. Notable opponents included Jens
Weidmann, president of the German Bundesbank. Along with many Germans,
Weidmann felt the ECB was overstepping its jurisdictional boundaries,
since EU treaties bar the bank from financing member states. Worse, were
OMT ever actually used, it essentially would be spending German money
to bail out what many Germans considered profligate Southern Europeans.
In early 2013, a group of economics and constitutional law professors
from German universities collected some 35,000 signatures and brought
OMT before the German Constitutional Court. During a hearing in June
2013, Weidmann testified for the prosecution. In February 2014, the
court delivered an unexpected verdict, ruling 6-2 that the central bank
had in fact overstepped its boundaries, though it also referred the
matter to the European Court of Justice. Recognizing the profound
importance of this issue, the court acknowledged that a more restrictive
interpretation of OMT by the European Court of Justice could make it
legal.
The German judgment suggested that three alterations to OMT would
satisfy the Constitutional Court that the mechanism was lawful. Two of
the three changes, however, are problematic at best. One alteration
would limit the ECB to senior debt, a change that would protect it
against the default of the sovereign in question but also
risk undermining the confidence of other investors who would not be
similarly protected. The second alteration would make bond buying no
longer "unlimited," constraining the bank's ability to intimidate bond
traders by leaving it with a rifle instead of a bazooka.

A New German Political Party

The group of academics who organized the petition kept busy while the
court deliberated. The Alternative for Germany, a party founded in
February 2013 by one of their number, economics professor Bernd Lucke,
and frequently known by its German acronym, AfD, has made significant
gains in elections across Germany. Founded as an anti-euro party, the
party came very close to winning a seat in the Bundestag, the lower
house of the German parliament, in the September 2013 general elections,
a remarkable feat for a party founded just six months before. It made
even larger gains in 2014, winning 7.1 percent of the vote in European Parliament elections in May and between 9.7 and 12.2 percent in three regional elections in August and September.
Germany is currently ruled by a grand coalition, with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union party
(and its sister party, the Bavaria-based Christian Social Union)
sharing power with the center-left Social Democratic Party. This has
resulted in the Christian Democratic Union being dragged further to the
center than it wanted to be, creating a space to its right that the
Alternative for Germany nimbly entered.
Originally a single-issue party, the Alternative for Germany has
begun espousing conservative values and anti-immigration policies, a
tactic that worked particularly well in elections held in eastern Germany in the summer.
Its rise puts Merkel, a European integrationist, in a quandary that
will become particularly acute if the Alternative for Germany proves
capable of representing Germans uncomfortable with the idea of the
country financially supporting the rest of Europe.
Since the beginning of the European crisis, Merkel has proved
masterful at crafting a message that combines criticism of countries in
the European periphery with the defense of bailout programs for those
same countries. But while Merkel has become accustomed to criticism from
left-wing parties over the harsh austerity measures the European Union
demanded in exchange for bailouts, she had not counted on anti-euro
forces mounting serious opposition in Germany. Merkel is not alone in
this, of course: center-right parties across Europe, from David
Cameron's coalition in the United Kingdom to Mark Rutte's People's Party
for Freedom and Democracy in the Netherlands, have seen Euroskeptical
populism emerge to their right, eating into their traditional voter
platforms.
This anti-ECB sentiment in Germany has swelled during 2014, as
Draghi's attempts to increase the eurozone's low inflation have departed
further and further from economic orthodoxy. German conservatives have
greeted each new policy with displeasure. The German media has called
negative interest rates "penalty rates," claiming they
redistribute billions of euros from German savers to Southern European
spenders. On Sept. 25, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble spoke
in the Bundestag of his displeasure with Draghi's program to buy
asset-backed securities. Judging from the German hostility to even
"quantitative easing-lite" measures, the ECB's attempts to rope Germany
into further stimulus measures could prove troublesome indeed.

Institutional and Political Challenges for Berlin

All of the measures the ECB has announced so far, however, are mere
appetizers. Financial markets have been demanding quantitative easing, a
broad-based program of buying sovereign bonds in order to inject a
large quantity of money into the market. Up to this stage, three major
impediments have existed to such a policy: the German government's
ideological aversion to spending taxpayers' money on peripheral
economies; the political conception that quantitative easing would ease
the pressure on peripheral economies to reform; and the court case that
has been hanging over OMT (the only existing mechanism available to the
ECB for undertaking sovereign bond purchases). Notably, the OMT in its
original guise and quantitative easing are not precisely the same thing.
In the original conception of OMT, the ECB would offset any purchases
in full by taking an equivalent amount of money out of circulation,
(i.e., not increasing the money supply itself). Nonetheless, any
declaration that OMT is illegal would severely inhibit Draghi's room for
maneuver should he wish to undertake full quantitative easing.
This confluence of events leaves Merkel nervously awaiting the
decision of the European Court of Justice. In truth, she is in a no-win
situation. If the Luxembourg court holds OMT illegal, Draghi's promise
would be weakened, removing the force that has kept many sovereign bond
yields at artificially low levels and permitting the desperate days of
2011-2012 to surge back. If the European Court of Justice takes up the
German court's three suggestions and undercuts OMT to the extent that
the market deems it to be of little consequence, the same outcome could
occur. And if the European Court of Justice rules that OMT is legal, a
sizable inhibitor to quantitative easing will have been removed, and the
possibility of a fully fledged bond-buying campaign will loom ever
closer, much to the chagrin of the German voter and to the political
gain of the Alternative for Germany.
When analyzing the significance of this case, it is important to bear
in mind that Germany is an export-driven power that must find markets
for its exports to preserve cohesion and social stability
at home. The eurozone helps Germany significantly — 40 percent of
German exports go to the eurozone and 60 percent to the full European
Union — because it traps its main European customers within the same
currency union, depriving them of the possibility of devaluing their
currencies to become more competitive.
Since the beginning of the crisis, Germany has managed to keep the
eurozone alive without substantially compromising its national wealth,
but the moment will arrive when Germany must decide whether it is
willing to sacrifice a larger part of its wealth
to save its neighbors. Berlin has thus far been able to keep its own
capital relatively free of the hungry mouths of the periphery, but the
problem keeps returning. This puts Germany in a dilemma because two of
its key imperatives are in contradiction. Will it save the eurozone to
protect its exports, writing a big check as part of the deal? Or will it
oppose the ECB moves, which if blocked could mean a return to
dangerously high bond yields and the return of rumors of Greece, Italy
and others leaving the currency union?
The case will prove key to Europe's future for even deeper reasons.
The European crisis is generating deep frictions in the Franco-German
alliance, the main pillar of the union. The contrast between Germany,
which has low unemployment and modest economic growth, and France, which
has high unemployment and no growth, is becoming increasingly difficult to hide.
In the coming months, this division will continue to widen, and Paris
will become even more vocal in its demands for more action by the ECB,
more EU spending and more measures in Germany to boost domestic
investment and public consumption.
This creates yet another dilemma for Berlin, since many of the
demands coming from west of the Rhine are deeply unpopular with German
voters. But the German government understands that high unemployment and
low economic growth in Europe are leading to a rise in anti-euro and
anti-establishment parties. The rise of the National Front in France
is the clearest example of this trend. There is a growing consensus
among German political elites that unless Berlin makes some concessions
to Paris, it could have to deal with a more
radicalized French government down the road. The irony is that even if
Berlin were inclined to bend to French wishes, it would find itself
constrained by institutional forces beyond its control, such as the Constitutional Court.
Germany has managed to avoid most of these questions so far, but
these issues will not go away and in fact will define Europe in 2015;
the Alternative for Germany, for example, is here to stay. Meanwhile,
the Constitutional Court will keep challenging EU attempts at
federalization even if this specific crisis is averted, and the
Bundesbank and conservative academic circles will keep criticizing every
measure that would reduce German sovereignty to help France or Italy.
Though it is impossible to predict the European Court of Justice's final
ruling, either way, the dilemma will continue to plague an increasingly
fragile European Union.Editor's Note: Writing in George Friedman's
stead this week are Stratfor Europe Analyst Adriano Bosoni
and Economy Analyst Mark Fleming-Williams.

Monday, September 29, 2014

Military Poll: Most Troops Oppose Ground Troops in Iraq

Daniel Doherty

9/29/2014 2:00:00 PM - Daniel Doherty

In virtually every foreign policy speech or interview the
president gives, he reiterates this simple message: His administration
will not re-deploy combat troops to Iraq.
Instead, he emphasizes the importance of building an international
coalition of nations to take the fight to ISIS. This will provide
coordinated and targeted air strikes against enemy targets, he argues,
as well as much-needed cover and assistance to our allies on the ground.
Perhaps not surprisingly, many active duty troops support this strategy:

As the tide of war rises again in the Middle
East, the military’s rank and file are mostly opposed to expanding the
new mission in Iraq and Syria to include sending a large number of U.S.
ground troops into combat, according to a Military Times survey of
active-duty members. On the surface, troops appear to support President
Obama’s repeated vows not to let the U.S. military get “dragged into
another ground war” in Iraq. Yet at the same time, the views of many
service members are shaped by a deep ambivalence about this commander in
chief and questions about his ability to lead the nation through a
major war, according to the survey and interviews.
The reader survey asked more than 2,200 active-duty troops this question:
“In your opinion, do you think the U.S. military should send a
substantial number of combat troops to Iraq to support the Iraqi
security forces?” Slightly more than 70 percent responded: “No.”“It’s
their country, it’s their business. I don’t think major ‘boots on the
ground’ is the right answer,” said one Army infantry officer and
prior-enlisted soldier who deployed to Iraq three times. He
responded to the survey and an interview request but, like several other
service members in this story, asked not to be named because he is not
authorized to discuss high-level military policy.

Furthermore, according to the Military Times, there are additional reasons why our military personnel broadly oppose on-the-ground intervention.
First, the ineffectiveness and weakness of the Iraqi government is a
top concern. Would the sacrifice be worth it, for example, if the Iraqi
government still can’t stand on its own hind legs? Second, the
administration’s willingness to dedicate itself to Iraq until the job is
finished remains uncertain. Understandably, many troops are asking the
following question: Since we pulled out of Iraq prematurely last time,
would we not do so again if and when the war falls out of favor? Third,
combat fatigue is a feeling that runs deep through the military. “We’re
burned out,” one soldier told the Times.
But perhaps this is the biggest concern of all:

Troops intuitively understand that final decisions
ultimately land on Obama’s desk. And support for Obama within the
military — never especially high — has dropped significantly since he
took office, according to the Military Times survey. In 2009, 35
percent of service members approved of the way Obama was “handling of
his job as commander in chief.” This year, that figure dropped below 15
percent.
That lack of support for Obama may underpin some service members’
views on Iraq today, Feaver said. “It’s very hard to mobilize the
military to follow an uncertain trumpet,” he said in an interview after
reviewing the results of the Military Times poll. “If they have doubts
about the commander in chief, they are going to have doubts about a
major military operation.

American troops, therefore, are losing faith in our
commander-in-chief. And even if they're not, as some have suggested,
garnering an abysmal 15 percent approval rating from our men and women
in uniform is hardly a ringing endorsement.
Be that as it may, the military’s strong preference for staying out of Iraq stands in sharp contrast to the NBC poll Matt wrote up on Sunday. All told, 72 percent of respondents say, sooner or later, US ground troops will occupy Iraqi soil.
The president, for his part, says the possibility of re-deploying our
military to the region is completely off-the-table. But if the public
keeps applying the pressure, who knows what might happen.

Can Vietnam’s Maritime Strategy Counter China? | The Diplomat 30/09/14 6:44 AMhttp://thediplomat.com/2014/09/can-vietnams-maritime-strategy-counter-china/ Page 1 of 4Image Credit: Wikimedia CommonsCan Vietnam’s Maritime StrategyCounter China?Just how developed and credible is Vietnam’s counterinterventionstrategy?Ever since Vietnam took delivery of two enhanced Kilo orVarshavyanka-class conventional submarines from Russiadefense analysts have differed over how quickly Vietnamcould absorb these weapons into its navy and create a credible deterrent force to China.For example, Admiral James Goldrick (Royal Australian Navy retired) noted, with respect to Vietnam’s purchase ofconventional submarines, that “the Vietnamese are trying to do something very quickly that no navy in recent timeshas managed successfully on such a scale from such a limited base.”The answer to whether or not Vietnam can absorb submarines and create a credible deterrent is now becomingclearer with reports by diplomatic observers that Vietnam’s submarines are undertaking patrols along its coast. Inaddition, Vietnamese crews are currently undergoing training in undersea warfare doctrine and tactics at India’sINS Satavahana submarine center.The views of defense analysts range from skeptical to cautiously optimistic about Vietnam’s ability to develop aneffective counter-intervention strategy to deter China in Vietnam’s maritime domain.Zachary Abuza, a political scientist at Simmons College in Boston, has authored two articles, both for cogitASIA, theblog of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, that present negative assessments of Vietnam’s growingmilitary capabilities.In his first article, Abuza asserted that the core of Vietnam’s navy consists of 11 aging Soviet-era corvettes and fivefrigates armed with antiquated weapons; “none are new, nor recently upgraded.” He offered the assessment that “itwill take years for Vietnam to complete its current round of modernization, as well as develop new doctrines andtactics to use this new technology.” He concluded, “Vietnam’s best weapons remain diplomacy and internationallaw.”Abuza mistakenly included four Tarantul V or Molniya-class guided missile frigates and one BPS-500 corvette inhis Soviet-era inventory. The BPS-500 underwent considerable upgrading in 2013.In addition, Abuza erroneously reported that Vietnam had purchased six frigates from India. Vietnam has no Indianfrigates in its navy. Recently India provided Vietnam with a $100 million line of credit to purchase six Ocean PatrolVessels. These acquisitions have yet to be finalized.When Vietnam’s four Molniya-class guided missile frigates and BPS-500 corvette are added to the two Gepard 3.9-class (Project 11661) guided missile stealth frigates (armed with 3M24 Uran [SS-N-25 Switchblade] anti-shipmissiles), two Dutch Sigma-class corvettes (armed with new extended range Exocet anti-ship missiles), and sixSvetlyak-class Fast Attack Craft armed with anti-ship missiles, Vietnam’s surface navy appears a more formidableforce.In his second analysis Abuza acknowledged that Vietnam has significantly upgraded its Soviet-era fleet with theacquisition of Russian Gepard-class frigates and Molniya corvettes and Dutch Sigma-class corvettes. NonethelessAbuza dismisses this force as a credible deterrent vis-à-vis China.By Carl ThayerSeptember 29, 2014Can Vietnam’s Maritime Strategy Counter China? | The Diplomat 30/09/14 6:44 AMhttp://thediplomat.com/2014/09/can-vietnams-maritime-strategy-counter-china/ Page 2 of 4Abuza argues that for a deterrent to be credible it must meet four criteria; it must be “credible, proportional, clearlycommunicated, and target what the other side values.” Abuza gives Vietnam a positive rating on the first twocriteria, a mixed result on the third, and fails Vietnam on the fourth.In Abuza view, Vietnam’s submarine force will not deter China because China may be willing to sacrifice a fewsurface combatants in order to prevail over Vietnam. Additionally, “Vietnam’s asymmetric deterrent capabilitycannot credibly deter China’s own asymmetric, quasi-militarized operations.” With respect to Abuza’s secondassertion it should be noted that no regional navy, except Japan, has developed a deterrent to China’s employmentof Coast Guard, other law enforcement, and fishing vessels to assert maritime sovereignty claims.With respect to the fourth criterion, Abuza concluded that Vietnam could not inflict sufficient damage on China“because Vietnam cannot fight a sustained conflict against its large neighbor, either economically or militarily. Andthat puts a big hole in its deterrent capability.” Additionally, the Chinese military “could respond by escalating inways that could threaten the Vietnamese regime’s hold on power.”Other analysts note, however, Vietnam’s deterrence strategy is not designed to confront China in a sustainedconflict. Rather it is aimed at deterring China at the lower end of the conflict spectrum by posing risks to People’sLiberation Army Navy (PLAN) warships should they contemplate intervening to support civilian law enforcementvessels.Lyle Goldstein, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, actually consults Chinese assessments of Vietnamesemilitary capabilities to determine whether Vietnam’s deterrence strategy is credible. Goldstein notes that Chinesedefense planners monitor Vietnam’s modernization programs “extremely closely” and have “ample respect… forVietnam overall,” including the Vietnamese Air Force.Goldstein notes that Vietnam’s Varshavyanka-class submarines can “deliver lethal blows with either torpedoes oranti-ship cruise missiles.” Zhang Baohui, a security specialist at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, concurs. Hereports that China’s military planners are concerned about Vietnam’s submarines. “On a theoretical level,” he notes,“the Vietnamese are at the point where they could put them to combat use.”Nonetheless, Goldstein reports that Chinese analysts have identified two major weaknesses in Vietnam’s militarystrategy: lack of major experience in operating complex weapons systems and “surveillance, targeting and battlemanagement.” These weaknesses have led Chinese defense officials to believe “that China could prevail in anyarmed clash” with Vietnam.Goldstein concludes, “Vietnam’s most promising strategy versus China is the hope that it might have sufficientforces for deterrence, while simultaneously pursuing diplomacy to resolve disputes.”Gary Li, Brian Benedictus, Robert Farley, Collin Koh and Siemon Wezeman offer cautiously optimistic evaluationsof Vietnam’s counter-intervention strategy.Gary Li, formerly a senior analyst with IHS Fairplay in London and currently a maritime security specialist with IHSMaritime in Beijing, noted a year ago that Vietnam’s advantage of geographical position and increasing navalcapabilities have made its coastline “a shooting gallery.” In this respect it should be noted that Vietnam’s coastalartillery and missiles force is under the direct control of its navy.In a recent assessment, Li once again stresses the importance of Vietnam’s geographical position vis-à-vis China. Linotes that Vietnam possesses the largest and most numerous number of islands in the Spratly archipelago. China“has to travel vast distances to reach the ends of its claimant zone.” According to Li:“Vietnam, on the other hand, is contesting an area that is right on its doorstep. Its fleet of missilearmedlight corvettes and submarines can strike and retreat into their homeports at will, while astricken Chinese fleet would more or less be lost.”Brian Benedictus, after reviewing in detail the capabilities of Vietnam’s Gepard-class light frigates, Molniya-classcorvettes, and enhanced Kilo (Varshavyanka)-class submarines, concludes that these acquisitions, “potentiallyallows [Vietnam] more options in its power projection towards claims in the South China Sea.” According toBenedictus, Vietnam’s frigates and corvettesCan Vietnam’s Maritime Strategy Counter China? | The Diplomat 30/09/14 6:44 AMhttp://thediplomat.com/2014/09/can-vietnams-maritime-strategy-counter-china/ Page 3 of 4“all have the ability to be quick strike vessels in a conflict scenario near the South China Sea, andpotentially deliver devastating blows to enemy vessels, something Beijing must take into account beforea decision would be made to engage the Vietnamese navy.”At the same time, Vietnam’s Varshavyanka-class submarines “have the potential to disrupt enemy ships in amilitary conflict in a variety of ways,” particularly as the PLAN is weak in anti-submarine warfare. Finally,Benedictus, like Li, stresses the importance of the geographic factor. He argues:“Vietnam is in close proximity to China’s Hainan Province, the island which is harbor to the PLANSouthern Pacific Fleet. It is worrisome enough for Beijing to consider that harbored vessels could beeasy prey to submarines off the island’s shores, if conflict took place; the prospect of Vietnam somedayhaving land-attack capabilities integrated into its submarine fleet would be a serious cause of concern.”Vietnam has expressed interest in acquiring the land-based BrahMos land attack cruise missile from India. Industrysources report that India is not yet ready to supply Vietnam with these missiles. Russia too has not yet agreed to sellsea-launched land attack cruise missile for Vietnam’s submarines.Robert Farley reinforces the arguments made by Li and Benedictus in an article that considers five Vietnameseweapons that China should fear. He lists the Sukhoi fighter, the Kilo-class submarine, the P-800 Onyx CruiseMissile, the S-300 SAM and Vietnam’s territory itself.The P-800 Onyx cruise missile “can be launched from aircraft, surface ships, submarines, and shore basedplatforms.” These missiles could attack Chinese ships from multiple, unexpected vectors and overwhelm the PLAN’sair defense systems.The S-300 surface-to-air missile is one of the world’s most sophisticated and integrated air defense systems.According to Farley, “it can track and engage dozens of targets at ranges of up to seventy-five miles… Used inconjunction with the fighters of the VPAF (Vietnam People’s Army Air Force), the SAM network would make it verydifficult to carry out a concerted air campaign against Vietnam at acceptable cost.” The S-300 system could be usedto protect Cam Ranh Bay and other vital naval bases.And finally, Farley notes, Vietnam “has the advantage of space,” that is, “inhospitable terrain” that would deterChina from launching a land invasion.Farley joins Li and Benedictus in concluding:“Vietnam does not want a full-scale war with China… In particular Vietnam doesn’t want to go toe-totoewith China in a capital and technology intensive war that might attrite away the expensiveequipment the VPA has acquired. Nevertheless, China must appreciate that Vietnam has bite. TheVietnamese military, in its current configuration, is designed to deter Chinese adventurism.”Collin Koh, from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, argues that Vietnam will use itssubmarines in area denial operations off its coast and in the Spratly islands once they become fully operational.According to Koh:“Sea denial means creating a psychological deterrent by making sure a stronger naval rival neverreally knows where your subs might be. It is classic asymmetric warfare utilized by the weak againstthe strong and something I think the Vietnamese understand very well. The question is whether theycan perfect it in the underwater dimension.”Siemon Wezeman, from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, goes further to argue that from theChinese point of view Vietnam’s deterrence is already a reality. According to Wezeman:“The Vietnamese have changed the whole scenario – they already have two submarines, they have thecrews and they appear to have the weapons and their capabilities and experience will be growing fromthis point. From the point of view of Chinese assumptions, the Vietnamese deterrent is already at apoint where it must be very real.”When all of Vietnam’s current and future arms acquisitions are taken into account, it is evident that Vietnam hastaken major steps to develop a robust capacity to resist maritime intervention by a hostile power. This has taken theCan Vietnam’s Maritime Strategy Counter China? | The Diplomat 30/09/14 6:44 AMhttp://thediplomat.com/2014/09/can-vietnams-maritime-strategy-counter-china/ Page 4 of 4form of developing a counter-intervention strategy that integrates shore-based artillery and missile systems; Su-30Sukhoi multirole jet fighters; fast attack craft, corvettes and frigates armed with ship-to-ship missiles; andVarshavyanka-class submarines. These weapon systems should enable Vietnam to make it extremely costly forChina to conduct maritime operations within a 200-300 nautical mile band of water along Vietnam’s coast from theVietnam-China border in the northeast to around Da Nang in central Vietnam if not further south.Additionally, Vietnam also has the capacity to strike China’s major naval base near Sanya on Hainan Island andmilitary facilities on Woody Island from its shore-based Bastion cruise missile system.The purpose of Vietnam’s counter-intervention strategy is intended to deter China from deploying PLAN warshipsat the lower end of the conflict spectrum, such as assisting civilian law enforcement agency vessels operating inVietnamese waters or blockading Vietnamese-held islands and features in the South China Sea.Please read our comments policy.Note that all comments are moderated and your comment may not appear immediately.

“America at war” headlines a
newspaper. That’s an understatement; America has been at war since the
“War that will end all wars” or World War I as we know it. Indeed, the
world has been at war since then. Yes, World War II followed and then
the Cold War… followed by the Korean War… followed by the Vietnam War… ad infinitum.

In 1991, the Cold War ended when the Soviet Union collapsed and
America became the only superpower on the face of the Earth. Thus began
Pax Americana.
But peace was shattered when Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990.
With America coming to the rescue, Saddam Hussein’s aggression was
repelled.

World Trade Center bombings

A decade later, terrorists attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
The U.S. went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Planet Earth has never
been at peace again.
Barack Obama won the U.S. presidency in 2009 with a vow to end the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He achieved ending the Iraq War on
December 15, 2011. In Afghanistan, American troops and NATO forces are
scheduled to leave by the end of 2014. But the Arab Spring – a series of
popular uprisings — brought the U.S. back to war when she and her NATO
allies conducted air strikes in Libya in support of the anti-Khadafy
rebels. Khadafy was killed but peace eluded Libya.Drone wars
On September 11, 2012, Islamic militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic
compound in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans were killed including U.S.
Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The attack prompted Obama to order drone
strikes against militants in Libya.
The unprecedented use of unmanned drones has revolutionized the way
wars are fought. Today, military operations involve the use of air and
naval forces with the use of missiles against enemy targets. Many
military experts, however, are of the opinion that air and naval warfare
without “boots on the ground” is not enough to defeat the enemy. With
several “secret” bases in the Middle East, Africa, and the Indian Ocean
region, the U.S. started bombing terrorists in five countries:
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia using unmanned drones.
On June 10, 2014, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) jihadists –
who have been fighting the Syrian government — crossed the border into
Iraq and captured the city of Mosul. A few weeks later, Obama ordered
air strikes against ISIS.
On September 22, Obama, with congressional authorization, expanded
the war into Syria by sending waves of fighter jets, B-1 bombers, cruise
missiles, and drones to hit ISIS camps. With new fronts in Iraq and
Syria, the number of countries the U.S. is at war increased to seven.US vs. RussiaBut there is another country – Ukraine — that the U.S. is at war, albeit a proxy war. Ukraine is fighting a de facto
war against Russia who has sent troops and heavy armaments to the
Donbas region in Ukraine to reinforce the pro-Russian separatists. But
in reality the U.S. and her NATO allies are the ones who are at war with
Russia. Ukraine is merely the battleground, which makes one wonder:
Would it escalate into a shooting war between Russia and the U.S.? Not
likely… for now.
The reason why the proxy war in Ukraine would not explode into a war
between Russia and the U.S. is that Russia is not prepared to go to war
against the U.S. She knows that the U.S. has a “Prompt Global Strike”
strategy that she couldn’t match.A “Ground Report” article titled “Nuclear war between Russia and the US could have apocalyptic consequences,” said: “The
Prompt Global Strike (PGS) concept was adopted in the USA in the
beginning of the 2000s. Prompt Global Strike (PGS) is a United States
military effort to develop a system that can deliver a precision
conventional weapon strike anywhere in the world within one hour, in a
similar manner to a nuclear ICBM.”
Unless Russia can knock the U.S. out in a first-strike attack, the
U.S. could retaliate — using her fleet of 14 nuclear ballistic missile
submarines (SSBN) — with a devastating second-strike counter-attack. To
neutralize the U.S.’s second-strike capability, Russia must destroy all
of the U.S.’s SSBNs, which is virtually impossible to accomplish. On the
other hand, a U.S. first-strike attack against Russia would be of such
magnitude that it would render Russia incapable of a second strike
against the U.S.

USS Sam Rayburn (SSBN 635) missile hatches

Nuclear backbone
The backbone of the U.S.’s nuclear capability is the SSBNs — known as
“boomers” — that are silently prowling the high seas with their deadly
Trident missiles. They are called “boomers” because when a Trident is
launched, it makes a booming sound. Each of the 14 boomers carries 12
ballistic missiles and each missile is equipped with 8-14 nuclear
warheads. That’s more than 2,300 nuclear warheads that can be
simultaneously launched against Russia. That accounts for about 50% of
the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal. The other 50% is land-based Intercontinental
Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) that could reach any target around the world…
including China.
Although the U.S. considers China an “adversary,” the two countries
are not yet at war. However, tensions are running high between China and
several of U.S.’s treaty allies in the Asia-Pacific region. A report
published in Want China Times said: “China has yet to build a
three-pronged nuclear capability that could challenge the United States,
consisting of strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The Second Artillery
Corps is also unable to compete against the US in the number of nuclear
warheads it has, the report said, adding that China would likely lose a
full scale nuclear war in less than an hour.”But while China is not militarily at par with the U.S. today, a report by Huffington Post said: “The
good news is China does not want war now and in the foreseeable future,
primarily because Beijing knows too well that the odds are not on its
side. But if we look ahead 20 years from now, in 2034, the circumstances
will have shifted significantly.”
While both Russia and China may be incapable of waging a nuclear war
with the U.S. today, it could be a different scenario in 20 years; that
is, if the U.S. couldn’t keep up with Russia and China’s upgrade of
their military capabilities. But from the array of futuristic warfare
the U.S. is developing today, she would – for goodness’ sake — still be
ahead of Russia and China 20 years from now. Pax Americana would still
be going strong.
Meanwhile, America is at war in eight fronts!
(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)

US Aggression Drags World into Age of Global Anarchy

Without a UN mandate or even a cohesive narrative, the United States and its regional allies have begun unilaterally bombing targets in Syria.
Together with Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar - the very
sponsors of extremists groups fighting inside of Syria, including the
Islamic State, its offshoot al Nusra, and other Al Qaeda aligned
factions - the US has opened a new chapter on global anarchy.

Image: After years of condemning the Syrian government's war against extremists
at the cost of the civilian population, the US began launching air and
missile strikes against "extremists" at the cost of Syria's civilian
population. Mind-bending hypocrisy and the utter circumvention of the
very "international law" the US claims to be chief arbiter over marks a
dangerous leap toward global anarchy.

Unlike
other campaigns of naked military conquest, the US appears to have
foregone the facade of UN approval, moral or legal justification, and
has instead applied a scatter-shot strategy of proposing multiple
pretexts for its aggression - all equally implausible, many
contradictory - hoping at least one will stick. After
much hand-wringing and complaining about Russia's actions in Ukraine -
citing the violation of "international norms" and international law, the
US has itself has clearly violated all the rules it has hypocritically
held the rest of the world to under threat of sanctions, subversion, and
outright military force. Without so much as a fig leaf of legality or
legitimacy, and with criminal regimes as its partners, the US has
committed the ultimate act of undermining the so-called "international
order" it itself poses as creator of and arbiter over.

Such
reckless abandonment and unprecedented illegitimacy signifies that this
"international order" may have already collapsed. Just as Adolf Hitler
abandoned the facade of "national defense" in his conquest of Europe,
the United States has now dispensed with international consensus and
international "rule of law" in its pursuit of global hegemony. What
unfolds next will be a zero sum contest between the West's naked
imperial conquest and those caught up in its path. The time for
appealing to international law is over as America drags the world into
yet another dark age of global anarchy.

America's Axis of Evil

Image: US allies itself with Saudi Arabia - the prototypeupon which the "Islamic State" was built. The glaringhypocrisy of Persian Gulf despots backing "pro-democracy"rebels in Syria was an early warning sign of a sinister,hegemonic agenda unfolding across the Middle East.

Beheading non-believers in public
squares, oppressing women, homosexuals, and other minority groups, and
peddling a backwards perversion of Islam all sound like the hallmarks of
the so-called "Islamic State" or ISIS as it is also known as. But in
fact, they are also the hallmarks of America's premier ally in the
current alleged fight against ISIS' global spanning terror operation -
Saudi Arabia. In fact, Saudi Arabia was the chief intermediary between
extremist groups across the Middle East and Washington in a nearly
decade long conspiracy to violently overthrow the governments of
Lebanon, Syria, and Iran with a regional mercenary army. Alongside
Saudi Arabia is Qatar. Both nations are ruled by unelected despots
posing as monarchies. Contest to their power is met with brutal
suppression and death. In fact, America's partnership with the Persian
Gulf despots at the beginning of the Syrian conflict should have been
one of the first clues that the fighting had nothing to do with
fostering democracy or freedom - two concepts that do not exist in
either Riyadh or Doha - and all to do with regime change and regional
hegemony. Both
Saudi Arabia and Qatar, despite feigned tensions, have converging
agendas - overthrowing the government of Syria, destroying Hezbollah in
Lebanon, and containing, destabilizing, and overthrowing the government
of Iran. To this end, they and the United States, along with Israel and
Turkey, have conspired to, and demonstrably have armed and funded Al
Qaeda's various factions across the region since at least as early as
2007. America's creation and use of Al Qaeda goes back much further, to
at least the 1980's when it used the terrorist organization to wage
proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Veteran
journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh would warn the world
in a 9-page report published by the New Yorker of the conspiracy
against Iran and Syria. In a report titled, "The Redirection Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" Hersh would report (emphasis added):

To
undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration
has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle
East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s
government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended
to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The
U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and
its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering
of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and
are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

It is abundantly clear that these
"Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant version of Islam" and
that are "sympathetic to Al Qaeda" have led the fighting against Syria
since 2011, and through the rise of groups like Al Nusra and ISIS,
constitute the verbatim fulfillment of Hersh's prophetic warning. For
the very sponsors of ISIS to pose as a unilateral global force that can
invade a nation's sovereignty at will, bomb and kill militants,
government troops, and civilians alike with utter impunity, in a quest
to undo terrorists organizations of their own creation, is the work of a
true "Axis of Evil." That the West continues to condemn the Syrian
government as a "brutal dictatorship" for fighting terrorists and
killing civilians in the process, all while it now "fights terrorists"
and is killing Syrian civilians in the process - plumbs new depths in
utter, unhinged hypocrisy. The "Moderates" Are the Terrorists

Image: Terrorists operating in Syria who received anti-tank weapons from the US admit they fight alongside Al Qaeda and have recently condemned USstrikes on the "Islamic State." Despite this, the US fully plans on continuing to arm them, and even provide them air support. Regime change, not stopping terrorism was always the goal in Syria.

One
Syrian rebel group supported in the past by the United States condemned
the air strikes on Tuesday. Harakat Hazm, a rebel group that received a
shipment of U.S. anti-tank weapons in the spring, called the airstrikes
“an attack on national sovereignty” and charged that foreign led
attacks only strengthen the Assad regime. The statement comes
from a document, purportedly from the group, that has circulated online
and was posted in English translation from a Twitter account called
Syria Conflict Monitor. Several Syria experts, including the Brookings
Doha Center's Charles Lister, believe the document to be authentic.

Before
the official statement, there were signs that Harakat Hazm was making
alliances in Syria that could conflict with its role as a U.S. partner.
In early Septemeber a Harakat Hazm official told a reporter for
the L.A. Times: “Inside Syria, we became labeled as secularists and
feared Nusra Front was going to battle us…But Nusra doesn't fight us, we
actually fight alongside them. We like Nusra.”

Harakat Hazm is the rule, not the
exception. The US has been directly arming and funding terrorists
fighting alongside Al Nusra - an offshoot of ISIS - and ISIS itself. As
Hersh revealed, the plan from the beginning was the bolster such groups
to fight Washington, Riyadh, Tel Aviv, and Doha's proxy war against
Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah. As
a side note, the "plot" alluded to in the Daily Beast's headline is one
of many pretexts used by the US to justify its recent violation of
Syria's sovereignty and its total circumvention of international law. The plot was called "specific" and "imminent"
but Pentagon officials were unable to narrow down the target to even a
single continent. As with all claims the US makes, zero evidence was
provided, nor any convincing, specific details. Israel, Turkey, and US - Three Front War on Syria That
the goal is in fact crushing Iran's arc of influence across the Middle
East, not defeating "terrorists" or fostering "democracy," goes far in
explaining Israel's posture along its border with Syria. Having claimed
to have shot down a Syrian warplane in the west just as the US began
bombing Syrian territory in the east, Israel has consistently used the
conflict as an excuse to pick apart the Syrian government and its
military. With terrorists hailing from Al Nusra along its borders -
Israel is clearly harboring and protecting them with extraterritorial
attacks just as Turkey has done in the north and the US will begin doing
in the east.

Far
from conjecture, the goal of opening a multi-front war with Syria has
been the stated agenda of Western policymakers for years. In 2012, the corporate-financier funded Brookings Institution in their "Middle East Memo #21" "Assessing Options for Regime Change" stated specifically (emphasis added):

In
addition, Israel’s intelligence services have a strong knowledge of
Syria, as well as assets within the Syrian regime that could be used to
subvert the regime’s power base and press for Asad’s removal. Israel
could posture forces on or near the Golan Heights and, in so doing,
might divert regime forces from suppressing the opposition. This
posture may conjure fears in the Asad regime of a multi-front war,
particularly if Turkey is willing to do the same on its border and if
the Syrian opposition is being fed a steady diet of arms and training.
Such a mobilization could perhaps persuade Syria’s military leadership
to oust Asad in order to preserve itself. Advocates argue this
additional pressure could tip the balance against Asad inside Syria, if
other forces were aligned properly.

It is clear that for years, the West
and its regional allies have pursued a singular agenda, with only the
rhetorical cover used to sell it to the public changing as one facade
collapsed after another. The most tenuous facade of all is America's
current campaign against its own ISIS mercenaries - conveniently opening
up a third front in the east to join Turkey and Israel's provocations
to the north and west respectively. What
will follow is the permanent operation of US and terrorist forces
everywhere from Raqqa to Aleppo, leaving it up to Damascus to tempt
provoking a direct war against itself by attempting to attack terrorists
protected by US airpower, special forces, and other assets deployed to
the region.Restoring Global SanityCountering this
will be difficult but not impossible. Syria and its allies have an
opportunity to fill the geostrategic void currently in the east and
negate the need for America's presence. Having sufficiently built up the
menace of its own terrorist mercenaries, the US has done the rhetorical
heavy-lifting to justify the creation of a joint
Syrian-Iraqi-Iranian-Russian-Chinese effort to neutralize ISIS and its
affiliates. By placing joint military forces on the ground in eastern
Syria where the West is unwilling to do so, will force the US to either
withdraw, or once again change its narrative in mid fight - a move that
Washington's crumbling legitimacy may not survive.
The West must be made to pay for its streak of global anarchy. Its
inability to follow its own rules expose it as an irresponsible
shareholder in an "international order" or its own creation. This
"international order" itself is a demonstrable failure, and in all
truth, a facade in and of itself. For Syria and its allies, they possess
the military and political resources to confront this threat directly.
For the general public, we possess the socioeconomic resources to permanently boycott and replace with local alternatives
all of the immense corporate-financier interests that lurk behind the
West's global agenda. The unwarranted influence and power the West
wields is a result of our collective, incremental patronage of their
corporations, institutions, and organizations. Undoing this unwarranted
influence will require our collective and incremental divestment from
what is in reality, international disorder.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

A Link Between the Ebola Outbreak and a US Bioweapons Lab?

What's behind the ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone? Could it possibly be a
US bioweapons project gone amuck? Why are US military agencies taking
the lead in responding to the breakout? These are questions that need to
be asked.

"There are many villages in the eastern part of Sierra Leone that are
basically devastated," virologist Robert Garry of Tulane University told
National Pubic Radio. "We walked into one village ... and we found 25
corpses. One house with seven people, all in one family, were dead.

"It's a very serious situation there," adds Garry, who just returned to
the U.S. from West Africa. "This is about as bad as it [an Ebola
outbreak] gets."

The epicentre of the current Ebola epidemic is the Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. BeforeItIsNews
claims the hospital houses a US a biosecurity level 2 bioweapons
research lab. That claim is unconfirmed, however, this we do know.

Analysis of clinical samples from suspected Lassa fever cases in Sierra
Leone showed that about two-thirds of the patients had been exposed to
other emerging diseases, and nearly nine percent tested positive for
Ebola virus. The findings, published in this month’s edition of Emerging Infectious Diseases, demonstrates that Ebola virus has been circulating in the region since at least 2006—well before the current outbreak, reports Global BioDefense.

According to GBD, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious
Diseases has been operating in the area since 2006, supposedly working
on "diagnostic tests."

Author Randal J. Schoepp, PH. D. reports that because the USAMRIID team
just happened to be working on disease identification and diagnostics in
the area, they had pre-positioned assays in the region to address the
ebola outbreak:

We had people on hand who were already evaluating samples and
volunteered to start testing right away when the current Ebola outbreak
started.

The laboratory testing site in Kenema is supported
by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center-Global Emerging
Infections Surveillance and Response System. Other contributors to the
work include the Department of Defense Joint Program Executive
Office-Critical Reagents Program, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency
(DTRA) Cooperative Biological Engagement Program, and the DTRA Joint
Science and Technology Office.

Metabiota Inc., a non-government organization (NGO) is also involved in
the testing. It lists among its partners, the Department of State,
Biological Engagement Program and the Department of Defense, Defense
Threat Reduction Agency. Advisors to the NGO include Admiral Gary
Roughead, former US Chief of Naval Operations.

Oh, and about Robert Parry, the virologist that I quote above who was in Sierra Leone, BioMed Centralreports, that:

He is currently managing a consortium of scientists who are developing modern diagnostics for several biodefense pathogens.

The Antichrist and the Muslim Mahdi (Part 1)

Michael Youssef

9/28/2014 12:01:00 AM - Michael Youssef

Many people—religious and non-religious—are asking
questions about a word they hear the media use when referring to ISIS
and other Islamist jihadists. That word is apocalyptic, which is used when specifically referring to the fatalism of Islamists.
People wonder, why do so many Muslims (both Sunni and Shiite) operate with such an “apocalyptic,” end-of-world mindset?
Our secular society, however, coupled with the media’s carelessness, is bandying about words like apocalyptic
without using them properly and without explanation. That creates a
great deal of confusion for some, many of which just throw up their
hands in resignation and say, “I don’t understand this.”
But for those who want to understand, I am offering this 2-part column, taking excerpts from my newest book, Jesus, Jihad, and Peace.
I hope this will put things into perspective, so when the media says
that an Islamist entity (such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, Iran, etc.) operate
with an apocalyptic vision, you can make sense of it.
The word apocalypse does not, in fact, refer to a disastrous, catastrophic, end-of-world event. It’s a Greek word, the root of which means revelation, or revealing things that are hidden. For instance, we know the last book of the Bible asRevelation, but in the original Greek language, it is Apokalupsae. It reveals what is happening in the heavenly realm, as well as events in the future.The Concept of the Antichrist
Both the Old Testament and New Testament spoke of an end-times figure, the Antichrist,
some six hundred years or more before Islam came on the scene. That
timing will be important when I explain Islam’s “end of time” coming of a
Mahdi in my next column.
The Antichrist is known by various
names. Paul calls him “the lawless one,” “the man of lawlessness,” and
“the man doomed to destruction” who “will exalt himself over everything
that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s
temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12). The
most detailed description of the Antichrist is in Revelation 13, where
the Apostle John refers to the Antichrist as “the beast.” The Old
Testament prophet Daniel describes the abominable works of the
Antichrist, but gives him no name or title (Daniel 9:27).
Who,
then, is the Antichrist, whose brief but terrible reign is predicted in
both the Old and New Testaments? He will be a world leader of
unparalleled political, military, and religious power. He will be
charming, persuasive, and popular beyond measure. The world will not
know him as the “Antichrist,” but by some attractive name and appealing
title. But just as the word “Antichrist” suggests, he will be the
opposite of the Lord Jesus Christ in every way. Everything Christ is,
the Antichrist is not; everything Christ is not, the Antichrist is.
Jesus
came from heaven (John 6:38); the Antichrist comes from the Abyss, the
spiritual domain of evil (Revelation 11:7). Jesus came in the name of
the Father; the Antichrist comes in his own name (John 5:43). Jesus was
despised by the world (Isaiah 53:3); the Antichrist is worshiped by the
world (Revelation 13:3-4). Jesus came in humility as a servant
(Philippians 2:7-8); the Antichrist comes in pride, claiming to be God
(2 Thessalonians 2:4; Daniel 11:36). Jesus is the truth (John 14:6); the
Antichrist is the lie (2 Thessalonians 2:9-11). Jesus is the Son of God
(Mark 1:1; Luke 1:35); the Antichrist is the son of perdition (2
Thessalonians 2:3 KJV).
The Apostle Paul tells us that the mystery
(or secret) of godliness is that God Himself has appeared to us in
human flesh (1 Timothy 3:16)—and that the mystery (or secret) of
lawlessness is that Satan has produced a counterfeit Christ, the
Antichrist, Satan wrapped in human flesh (2 Thessalonians 2:6-8). Jesus
is the true Shepherd; Satan will have his evil shepherd, the Antichrist.
Jesus is the Holy One of God; the Antichrist will be the lawless one of
Satan. Jesus is the Man of Sorrows; the Antichrist will be the man of
sin.One Antichrist and many antichrists
First
of all, the Antichrist is coming—a lawless man who will come in Satan’s
power, demanding to be worshiped as God, destroying all those who love
God. But John tells us that there are many other antichrists, lesser
deceivers who are also self-exalting, evil, and destructive. They are
antichrists, but they are not the Antichrist.
Jesus tells
us that, shortly before His return, the Antichrist will arise during a
time of global chaos and confusion, when the world is in political,
social, financial, and ecological upheaval. The terrified people of the
world, desperate for a strong leader, will turn to this man and give him
control of the governments of the world.
Daniel tells us that the
Antichrist will speak “boastfully” (Daniel 7:8), yet it is clear that
these will not be empty boasts. The Antichrist will appear to possess
superhuman brilliance. He’ll be the ultimate smooth talker, the greatest
con-man who ever lived, and he’ll unite the nations under his rule. At
first, he’ll seem to be a wise and benevolent dictator, bringing peace,
prosperity, and hope. But once he is firmly in control of the gears and
levers of power, he’ll reveal his true intentions.
The way has
been paved for such a leader. Atheists, humanists, New Age mystics,
Hindus, Buddhists, and Islamists have little in common with each
other—but they all share in the belief that Jesus is not the
only way to salvation. There are even many self-styled “Christians” who
deny the Lord’s claim to be the only way to God. So it will be easy for
the Antichrist to establish himself to many as an acceptable
alternative.
In these days of muddled and confused worldviews, it
is vitally important to know the truth. After all, Jesus said, “The
truth will set you free.” As events unfold, we need to see them not only
through the cameraman’s lens, but also through the lens of biblical
revelation.
That the Antichrist is coming is known—only the timing
is unknown. Although we know not the hour of night that the thief
comes, we must be prepared nonetheless.In next week’s article (Part 2), we’ll take a look at the striking parallels between the Antichrist and Islam’s Mahdi (savior).

Saturday, September 27, 2014

‘Islamic State is a creation of the United States’

The United States has much to learn about foreign relations, says Dr Mahathir.

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 22, 2014:

The controversial terrorist organisation,
Islamic State (IS) is a creation of the United States, said former
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

In his blog posting today titled “The
Islamic State” he lambasted the federal republic for not learning from
its past mistakes by toppling democratically elected governments through
“undemocratic overthrows”.

“Suddenly, out of the blue almost there
appeared in the Middle East a powerful force seemingly moved by a desire
to set up an Islamic state, a Caliphate no less,

“Where did they come from? Just like the Taliban they were created by the United States of America,”

Dr Mahathir then explained that the US
had always wanted to replace Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Shiite
Government with a Sunni Government.

He
said with Iraq and Iran under Shiite rule, a Shiite Government in Syria
would tilt the balance in the Middle East in favour of the Shiite – the
most violent enemy of the US.

He claimed that when attempts were made
to overthrow Bashar’s government, the Americans found themselves a
window of opportunity to install a Sunni government in Syria.

“To ensure this would be the result of
the civil war in Syria, America provided military aid and money to the
Sunni rebels in Syria to ensure their overthrow of Bashar,

“Many of the Sunni fighters were
fanatically against the Shiite. They readily accepted United States aid
and then decided to cross from Syria into Iraq to overthrow the Shiite
Government there,” he said.

Warning that the US would find itself an
implacable enemy should IS expand its territories, Dr Mahathir said the
US should ally itself with Syria to fight off the terrorist group.

Bemoaning the fact that had the US not
intervened earlier, the beheading of the two American journalists would
never had happened.

“They tried to promote regime change in Arab countries and only succeeded in destabilising these countries,”

SITES AROUND AFRICA, AND IN WEST AFRICA, HAVE OVER THE YEARS BEEN SET UP FOR TESTING EMERGING DISEASES, ESPECIALLY EBOLA
The World Health Organization (WHO) and several other UN Agencies
have been implicated in selecting and enticing African countries to
participate in the testing events, promoting vaccinations, but pursuing
various testing regiments. The August 2, 2014 article, West Africa: What
are US Biological Warfare Researchers Doing in the Ebola Zone? by Jon
Rappoport of Global Research pinpoints the problem that is facing
African governments.
Obvious in this and other reports are, among others:
(a) The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases
(USAMRIID), a well-known centre for bio-war research, located at Fort
Detrick, Maryland;
(b) Tulane University, in New Orleans, USA, winner of research
grants, including a grant of more than $7 million the National Institute
of Health (NIH) to fund research with the Lassa viral hemorrhagic
fever;
(c) the US Center for Disease Control (CDC)

This is the kind of propaganda relief workers are facing in Liberia and Western Africa.

This hivemind enforcement is getting totally out of control

This time it’s the seemingly harmless
comedian Rob Schneider. Schneider, who recently resurrected his quiet
funny “making copies guy” Saturday Night Live persona for a State Farm
add, has been canned by the fearful eunuchs at State Farm. Why? Because
he said something racist? Because he was once involved in a domestic
dispute? Because he once spanked his kid? No, because he is
“anti-vaccine” and the dutiful enforcers of the correct opinion on that
issue rose up in collective indignation. How dare State Farm hire a
funny guy to reprise a funny role since he once voiced a stray opinion?
Doesn’t State Farm realize that once some malcontent voices an opinion
that deviates from the accepted script, then he should no longer be
allowed to pursue gainful employment? Jenny McCarthy was the victim of a similar campaign when
she was hired to be on The View, but managed to keep her job, at least
for a while. (As an aside, when I got all excited seeing the making
copies guy again, I had to explain to my kids what the big deal was.
They didn’t get it.)

Sigh! This hivemind enforcement is getting
totally out of control. We are all aware of the PC Hivemind Enforcement
Brigade which scours the country for any sign of deviation from equalist
dogma. But we are now seeing the emergence of a related phenomenon, the
Conventional Wisdom (CW) Hivemind Enforcement Brigade that likewise
scours the country for any sign of independent thought that contradicts
what the Powers That Be have deemed unassailable truth.

I’m not anti-vaccine, but I’m
anti-anti-anti-vaccine, if you follow. It intuitively strikes me as more
dangerous to condone the quashing of contrarian thought by the CW
Gestapo, than it is to allow the contrarian thought to sink or swim in
the arena of open discussion and debate. If the anti-vaccine folks are
wrong, then counter them with facts and research, and I’m sure they’ll
have their research as well. Let the chips fall where they may.

Now the CW shills will likely object that the
anti-vaccine crowd doesn’t listen to research and that their own
research is flawed. Perhaps so. Perhaps not. As a long time denizen of
the nether regions of acceptable political thought, I am well acquainted
with a certain mindset that seemingly reflexively rejects the
conventional wisdom in favor of the alternative or contrarian viewpoint.
They reject conventional medicine in favor of alternative medicine.
They reject the pharmaceutical industry in favor of supplements and
natural remedies. They reject big agriculture in favor of organic
produce. They reject the accepted explanation for historical events in
favor of conspiratorial explanations. They reject the mainstream media
in favor of alternative media sources. Etc. These beliefs do not always
come as a package, but one recognizes certain trends and tendencies. And
these types inhabit both the left and right.

But while I don’t always agree with them,
unlike the righteous defenders of the CW, I do not fear them. In fact, I
think they represent a healthy tendency for the population as a whole.
You don’t want a whole population of contrarians, but neither do you
want a whole population that reflexively marches in lock step with the
conventional wisdom.

I don’t get the mentality of the rabid
defenders of the CW. What emotional stake does someone have in upholding
the CW? It’s the CW, it will take care of itself. It doesn’t need your
help. But these types pop up all over. They are well represented on
social media. Just ask Jenny McCarthy. They are very much over
represented in the mainstream media, just ask any creationist, birther,
truther, “gold bug,” etc. who has managed to be noticed by them. “Ha ha …
suchanother doesn’t believe in evolution. What a buffoon.” “Ha ha …
suchanother doesn’t believe in global warming. What a buffoon.” “Ha ha …
suchanother doubts the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate. What a
buffoon.” “Ha ha … suchanother doesn’t believe that plane was shot down
by Russian separatists. What a buffoon.” “Ha ha … suchanother rejects
central banking. What a buffoon.” I could go on, but you get the point.

For the record, I consider myself
something of a tweener. I neither reflexively accept nor deny the CW or
the alternative. I try to weigh both sides before coming to a
conclusion. I accept the CW in some cases. I accept the alternative in
others. Imagine that. But I recognize that I’m inherently more tolerant
of the reflexive rejecters than I am the reflexive acceptors. Reflexive
acceptance strikes me as thoughtless and a position of weakness. No one
was ever criticized for spouting the conventional wisdom. While
reflexive rejection is also … well reflexive, at least it’s bold.

I am convinced that the emotional
investment in dutifully upholding the CW is, like dutifully spouting PC
platitudes, a form of cultural signaling. It’s (often blue) flag waving.
It lets the world know that the waver is a pristine upholder of
acceptable and allowable opinion and not one of those silly “deniers” or
“anties.” This viscerally strikes me as cloying and pathetic. Even
where I accept the CW, I am careful to be respectful of the other side
lest I be seen as a shill. Please get over yourselves CW lock steppers.
You’re embarrassing yourselves and suppressing dissident thought. You
never know, today’s dissident opinion may be tomorrow’s conventional
wisdom. Just relax and let the free-market of ideas work it out, and let
harmless comedians make a living.

About Me

ROLAND SAN JUAN was a researcher, management consultant, inventor, a part time radio broadcaster and a publishing director. He died last November 25, 2008 after suffering a stroke. His staff will continue his unfinished work to inform the world of the untold truths. Please read Erick San Juan's articles at: ericksanjuan.blogspot.com This blog is dedicated to the late Max Soliven, a FILIPINO PATRIOT.
DISCLAIMER - We do not own or claim any rights to the articles presented in this blog. They are for information and reference only for whatever it's worth. They are copyrighted to their rightful owners.
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